Mark Hahn
Guest
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 Posted:
Sat Jan 29, 2005 11:48 pm Post subject:
Re: Cell Architecture Explained (MASSIVE AMOUNT OF INFO) |
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In comp.sys.intel Jeremy Williamson <jeremiah.d.williamson@nospamintel.com> wrote:
| Quote: | Memory starved is par for the course. One of those issues that increases as
we move forward.
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only for traditional ISA's. for PIMish stuff, bandwidth really
isn't a concern. interconnect, yes. programming model, yes.
but bandwidth is only a concern for designs that continue to
put compute elements in separate chips from memory elements.
(yes, there are process issues when you try to do this.) |
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Jeremy Williamson
Guest
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| Posted:
Tue Feb 01, 2005 4:51 am Post subject:
Re: Cell Architecture Explained (MASSIVE AMOUNT OF INFO) |
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"Ronald H. Nicholson Jr." <rhn@mauve.rahul.net> wrote in message
news:ctf9ic$n4c$1@blue.rahul.net...
| Quote: | In article <ct3tks$8gj$1@news01.intel.com>,
Jeremy Williamson <jeremiah.d.williamson@NOSPAMintel.com> wrote:
"Ronald H. Nicholson Jr." <rhn@mauve.rahul.net> wrote in message
news:cssfcg$fva$1@blue.rahul.net...
In article <name99-42B264.17530821012005@localhost>,
Maynard Handley <name99@name99.org> wrote:
Bottom line is that this thing doesn't resemble any traditional CPU
and
is therefore a godawful match to existing languages, compilers and
algorithms.
GPU shader algorithms and languages? Common DSP library/toolbox calls?
...
You do realize that this will still have a GPU, and as a matter of fact
Sony
gave up the idea of doing it themselves and gave the contract to nVidia
(my
guess was cost vs. bowing to requests from the SW community).
Essentially
that means all your basic T&L (including your shader algorithms) are
still
done on the GPU.
Yes, but aren't people experimenting with using shader and DSP languages
and tools for stuff that has nothing to do with the workstation display
or audio output?
The question is whether this software is commercially
interesting and whether this cell device is more suited for this stuff
than the GPU's on which these algorithm were developed.
IMHO. YMMV.
--
Ron Nicholson rhn AT nicholson DOT com http://www.nicholson.com/rhn/
#include <canonical.disclaimer> // only my own opinions, etc.
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Yes, especially since GPUs are slowly becoming more generically programmable
(due to the pixel and vertex shaders). AIUI, the next gen is likely to have
primitive branching. There was a full day workshop on porting apps to the
GPU at SIGGRAPH last year. There was even a published paper of someone
porting a database to the GPU.
But, what I was trying to say is the Cell is not a GPU nor is it likely to
take away many of the tasks currently farmed to today's GPUs (T&L).
Jeremy |
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